But, on the whole, his seems to have been a strongly artistic nature; for he was a musician of repute, skillful too at painting, and above all a poet.  As master and model in metrical composition he chose Martial, and in his epigrammatic turn he is akin to the great Latin poet.  He was fond of experimenting in Latin lyrical forms, and wrote many madrigals and sonnets.  They are full of vigorous thought and bright satire, of playful malice and epicurean joy in life, and have always won the admiration of his fellow-poets.  As has been said, they show a fine taste, quite in advance of the age.  Cervantes, his greater contemporary, acknowledged his power with cordial praise in the Canto de Caliope.

The “witty Andalusian” did not write voluminously.  Some of his poems still remain in manuscript only.  Of the rest, comprised in one small volume, perhaps the best known are ‘The Jovial Supper,’ ‘The Echo,’ and the ‘Counsel to a Widow.’

     SLEEP

     Sleep is no servant of the will,
       It has caprices of its own: 
       When most pursued,—­’tis swiftly gone;
     When courted least, it lingers still. 
     With its vagaries long perplext,
       I turned and turned my restless sconce,
       Till one bright night, I thought at once
     I’d master it; so hear my text!

     When sleep will tarry, I begin
       My long and my accustomed prayer;
       And in a twinkling sleep is there,
     Through my bed-curtains peeping in. 
     When sleep hangs heavy on my eyes,
       I think of debts I fain would pay;
       And then, as flies night’s shade from day,
     Sleep from my heavy eyelids flies.

     And thus controlled the winged one bends
       Ev’n his fantastic will to me;
       And, strange, yet true, both I and he
     Are friends,—­the very best of friends. 
     We are a happy wedded pair,
       And I the lord and she the dame;
       Our bed—­our board—­our hours the same,
     And we’re united everywhere.

     I’ll tell you where I learnt to school
       This wayward sleep:—­a whispered word
       From a church-going hag I heard,
     And tried it—­for I was no fool. 
     So from that very hour I knew
       That having ready prayers to pray,
       And having many debts to pay,
     Will serve for sleep and waking too.

From Longfellow’s ‘Poets of Europe’:  by permission of Houghton, Mifflin and Company.

     THE JOVIAL SUPPER

     In Jaen, where I reside,
     Lives Don Lopez de Sosa;
     And I will tell thee, Isabel, a thing
     The most daring that thou hast heard of him. 
     This gentleman had
     A Portuguese serving man . . . 
     However, if it appears well to you, Isabel,
     Let us first take supper. 
     We have the table ready laid,
     As we have to sup together;